CHAPTER 12

"The two carriers were at first loud in their threats of
actions for damages, and promised to rain all the penalties
of the law on us. Their threats were, however, mingled
with some sort of indirect apology for the defeat of the
two of them by a feeble madman. They said that if it had
not been for the way their strength had been spent in carrying
and raising the heavy boxes to the cart they would have made
short work of him. They gave as another reason for their defeat
the extraordinary state of drouth to which they had been reduced
by the dusty nature of their occupation and the reprehensible
distance from the scene of their labors of any place of public
entertainment. I quite understood their drift, and after a stiff
glass of strong grog, or rather more of the same, and with each a
sovereign in hand, they made light of the attack, and swore that
they would encounter a worse madman any day for the pleasure of
meeting so 'bloomin' good a bloke' as your correspondent. I took
their names and addresses, in case they might be needed. They
are as follows: Jack Smollet, of Dudding's Rents, King George's
Road, Great Walworth, and Thomas Snelling, Peter Farley's Row,
Guide Court, Bethnal Green. They are both in the employment of
Harris & Sons, Moving and Shipment Company, Orange Master's Yard,
Soho.

"I shall report to you any matter of interest occurring here, and
shall wire you at once if there is anything of importance.

"Believe me, dear Sir,

"Yours faithfully,

"Patrick Hennessey."

LETTER, MINA HARKER TO LUCY WESTENRA (Unopened by her)

18 September

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"My dearest Lucy,

"Such a sad blow has befallen us. Mr. Hawkins has died very
suddenly. Some may not think it so sad for us, but we had
both come to so love him that it really seems as though we
had lost a father. I never knew either father or mother,
so that the dear old man's death is a real blow to me. Jonathan
is greatly distressed. It is not only that he feels sorrow, deep
sorrow, for the dear, good man who has befriended him all his
life, and now at the end has treated him like his own son and
left him a fortune which to people of our modest bringing up is
wealth beyond the dream of avarice, but Jonathan feels it on
another account. He says the amount of responsibility which it
puts upon him makes him nervous. He begins to doubt himself. I
try to cheer him up, and my belief in him helps him to have a
belief in himself. But it is here that the grave shock that he
experienced tells upon him the most. Oh, it is too hard that a
sweet, simple, noble, strong nature such as his, a nature which
enabled him by our dear, good friend's aid to rise from clerk to
master in a few years, should be so injured that the very essence
of its strength is gone. Forgive me, dear, if I worry you with my
troubles in the midst of your own happiness, but Lucy dear, I
must tell someone, for the strain of keeping up a brave and
cheerful appearance to Jonathan tries me, and I have no one here
that I can confide in. I dread coming up to London, as we must
do that day after tomorrow, for poor Mr. Hawkins left in his will
that he was to be buried in the grave with his father. As there
are no relations at all, Jonathan will have to be chief mourner.
I shall try to run over to see you, dearest, if only for a few
minutes. Forgive me for troubling you. With all blessings,